Think tanks replaced academic Middle East studies when scholars turned critical of empire

Evidence

While Orientalism and modernization theory each had their own research traditions and methods, both shared a polarized view of the world that saw the East as inferior and the West as superior; both were based on deeply racist notions tied to biology and culture. Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism relies on biologizing culture to make culture appear natural and inherent. … Policy makers found it more challenging to find scholars who fell in line with US imperial aims. This led to the rise of think tanks that established close ties to the US national security state, as Khalil demonstrates. Unmoored from the standards of academic rigor, think tanks would play an instrumental role in furnishing empire with theory and policy. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 251

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Khalil’s work (in-text citation) and generally to the Islamophobia-as-imperial-policy cluster’s claim that knowledge production was deliberately reorganized after 9/11. — connects to: As academia grew critical, think tanks filled the role of supplying empire with theory.; Decolonization-driven academic critique pushed empire toward think tanks — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 263; Think tanks arose to replace critical scholars with imperial-friendly policy theory (+1 more)
• QUESTION: The 1958 National Defense Education Act spurring area studies directly parallels the post-9/11 ‘knowledge needs’ framing — worth chasing whether the 9/11-era think tank boom repeated this 1958 pattern.

Broader Connections

• Decolonization-driven academic critique pushed empire toward think tanks #corroborates (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 263
• Decolonization scholarship made academia less useful, shifting state reliance to think tanks #corroborates (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 746
• Think tanks arose to replace critical scholars with imperial-friendly policy theory #expands (0.85)